Return of Honor
by Paige M. Carter
Summary: After letting Lucifer out, Sam will do anything to regain Dean's trust, but will he go too far on a hunt? Warning: Story contains references to racial violence.


Author's Note: The story the boys investigate (with some alterations due to creative license) is based on a legend my ex-boyfriend told me and he claimed to have had a rather hair-raising encounter at the actual place. So thanks to him for that story. The town of Rushville, Indiana is a real place an I apologize to its citizens for how it is portrayed. Much thanks to Thesiriusmoon for the prompt and I hope it's close to what you had in mind. This was written for Thesiriusmoon for the Summer of Sam Love 2011 fic exchange on livejournal.

Bobby sighed as he listened to Sam trying to be quiet in the library. He knew without looking at his alarm clock that it was late, way too late for Sam to be up, especially since the boy was only getting about two to three hours of sleep a night as it was. He wondered when Sam had last had a decent night's sleep. He also wondered why Dean wasn't trying to get his brother to go to bed. Dean was always adamant about his brother getting enough sleep.

He levered himself into his wheelchair and wheeled himself into the library. Sure enough, Sam was slumped at his laptop, staring blearily a screen discussing angels and demons.

"Sam?" Bobby knew from long experience and from watching Dean interact with the youngest Winchester when one of Sam's fits of insomnia flared, that speaking loudly when Sam was that exhausted was asking for trouble.

Sam jumped and turned to face him before forcing a completely fake smile onto his face, "Hey Bobby, I didn't hear you come in."

Bobby smiled, "I noticed. What're you doin' still up?"

Sam shrugged, "Just looking for something to stop Lucifer."

Bobby sighed, "Sam, you've been looking for weeks. Whatever will stop Lucifer and Michael ain't in them books or on the Internet."

Sam shook his head vehemently, "No, it's my mess, I gotta clean it up. There's always an answer."

Bobby refrained from pointing out that they'd been given a solution by the angels and the demons but it was an solution none of them would accept.

Bobby watched Sam work for a few more minutes before putting a hand on his arm, "Sam, killing yourself isn't going to solve this. Go to bed."

Sam shook his head again, "No! I have to fix it. Gotta make it right! Gotta prove to Dean..."

Bobby sighed, there it was, the reason Sam was killing himself trying to find a way to stop the archangels, Dean. The boys had been barely speaking to each other since the botched attempt to stop Lucifer that cost Ellen and Jo their lives. Dean busied himself with working on the Impala and some of the cars in the lot for extra cash and whenever the two boys were in the same room they barely spoke and Bobby was pretty sure that they were sleeping in different rooms now.

"Sam, working yourself into exhaustion isn't going to fix this. Dean's gonna need you at your best if you two are going to beat Lucifer. He's counting on you." Seeing that he had Sam's attention, he continued, "Go to bed, Sam, so you can be at your best for Dean." Sam finally nodded and shut down to computer before stumbling upstairs. Bobby allowed himself a sigh of relief before going back to bed. He knew that this wasn't the end of it, but at least he'd paused it for awhile.

****A Few Days Later****

Sam sighed as he dragged himself out of bed. Another night with little sleep and the sleep that he did get was plagued with dreams from Lucifer. He got dressed and stumbled down the stairs, where he was shocked to see Dean already fully dressed and lugging the weapons bag to the door.

"Dean, what's going on?" Sam hadn't remembered hearing about any hunts before he went to bed.

"Bobby's got a job for us. Suspicious activity outside of Rushville, Indiana."

Sam frowned, "Anymore info?" Neither of them liked going into a hunt without at least a smidgeon of information anymore, in case it was a trap by the angels or Lucifer.

Dean shrugged, "Nope. Just some reports of suspicious activity."

Sam took a deep breath, "Dean, I really think we should at least do more research before going..."

Dean scowled, "We'll research when we get there, Sam! Now get your crap and let's go!"

Sam sighed before trudging back up the stairs and grabbing his duffel, laptop case and backpack and heading back downstairs.

After a tense twelve hour trip, Rushville was a bit of a disappointment. Just an average small town with one very dingy motel, that surprisingly had wireless internet, a diner, a lot of farmland and not much else. Sam hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary, just an average shitty farm town. They checked into the motel and then took a walk around the town. Neither of them really saw anything they thought of as suspicious until they noticed a town paper.

'Young man found dead at deserted farm.'

"Dean." Sam paid for the newspaper and showed it to his brother.

Dean's eyebrows lifted, "Okay. Let's see if we can't find this place."

Surprisingly, the farm wasn't hard to find, the police had cleared out and there were some flowers near a big tree. Under the tree was a small group of teenagers.

After deciding on playing journalists, they climbed out of the car and headed for the group.

"Excuse me," Dean called as they made their way over to the group. "I'm Dean Campbell, this is my partner Sam Singer, we're journalists with 'Ghosthunters Monthly'. What happened here?"

The teenagers stared for a minute before one of them stepped forward, "Someone strung Darnell up!"

Sam frowned, "Someone strung him up? Who would do that?"

The girl shrugged, "I don't know! He was so nice! Never a mean thing to say to anyone! Everybody liked him!"

Sam nodded, "Okay. Do you know what he was doing out here?"

The girl frowned, "The cops said that they found his car a little ways up the road. Said it had a flat tire, so he was probably trying to cut through to the house on the other side of the property."

"Why didn't he use his cellphone?"

The girl scoffed, "Because Rushville is the middle of nowhere and if you venture too far out of town, you can't get service."

After a few minutes, the teenagers left and Dean and Sam began prowling through the property. Even in broad daylight, the place was creepy. Then the EMF meter went haywire near the big tree.

Sam nodded, "Okay, so we've got the possible source. Let's go back to the motel and see if we can find anything hinky here."

Dean nodded and they headed back to the Impala.

*****A Few Hours Later*****

They had been researching in silence for what felt like hours before Sam finally spoke, "Dean, I think I have something." He focused on the screen in front of him, "According to local papers, six men were murdered at the house in 1965."

Dean looked up, "Does it say what happened?"

Sam shook his head, "No. But according to , the house was supposedly used as a clubhouse for the local KKK. It also says that in 1965, a battle broke out between the Klan and a group Black Panthers who killed all the Klan members and strung them up in the big tree in front of the house as a token of vengeance for all the African-Americans that were lynched in America since the end of the Civil War. No evidence of the alleged battle was ever found and the perpetrators were never caught. The house was finally torn down in 2000."

Dean nodded, "Well, that explains what I'm finding. Since the year 2000, seven young men have been found dead on the property. All of them African-American, all of them found hanging from that big tree."

Sam's eyes widened, "So, we've got racist ghosts, stirred up by the tearing down of the house and they're killing any black kids that show up?"

Dean shrugged, "We've had ghost staying around for better reasons. Besides, if that battle actually took place, those guys died pretty pissed off."

Sam nodded, "Okay, so we're going to have to destroy the tree."

Dean nodded, "You go get the stuff, I'll make sure the chainsaws are ready."

******Midnight*****

They pulled up to the house carefully, making sure their headlights were out so as to not attract any attention from the houses nearby.

"You sure you don't want to at least have the headlights on?" Sam asked as they crept towards the tree with their supplies and flashlights.

Dean shook his head, "Nah, too much of a chance some nosey neighbor might see."

They stood on either sides of the tree with the saws.

"Okay, Sam, fire it up."

Cutting down the tree was easy, too easy. It wasn't until they started dousing the tree that the first signs of trouble began.

"Dean," Sam said as the wind suddenly picked up.

Dean nodded, "I know. I'll finish this up, you keep an eye out for spirits."

Sam grabbed his gun and braced himself. Suddenly he heard the voices.

"Blood traitors!" He saw them, six men with elongated necks and hate filled eyes.

"Blood traitors!"

Sam fired his gun at the first one and he disappeared, but the other five ghosts were on him before he could reload. He was tossed away from the tree and landed hard against the foundation. He sat up and shook his head and was horrified to see the ghosts circling Dean. He grabbed his shotgun and stuffed two more rounds in the barrels.

"Dean, duck!" The second Dean was on the ground, he fired, thankfully far enough away so that the blast pattern scattered the salt enough that it hit all the ghosts.

Dean got to his feet and hurriedly finished dousing the tree with gas and salt and lit it up.

The ghosts screamed as their bodies erupted in flames.

When the last of the flames died away, Dean walked over to where Sam was still sitting against the foundation.

"Sam? You okay?"

Sam winced and tried to get to his feet, but fell back against the foundation. Dean knew the look on his brother's face all too well, Sam had a concussion and probably some cracked ribs.

"C'mon." Dean lifted one of Sam's arms across his shoulders and lugged his woozy brother to the Impala, making sure he was securely inside before gathering their things and burning rubber back to town.

Dean sighed as he finished checking Sam over. His brother had a nasty lump on his head and bruised ribs, nothing too serious, but what was bothering him, were the other things he was finding on Sam that had nothing to do with their encounter that night.

Sam had lost weight, not that he was heavy, but he definitely didn't have extra weight to lose. There were also dark bruises under his eyes that Dean knew were cause by sleeplessness.

He sighed and rubbed his face, a few years before, this never would have happened. A few years ago, he would have noticed that Sam wasn't eating or sleeping, but between his deal, going to Hell, getting out of Hell, finding out about Sam drinking demon blood and letting Lucifer out, he'd completely forgotten about his first job; taking care of Sam.

Dean sighed again, this had gotten completely out of hand. He'd been pissed at Sam for going with Ruby and getting hooked on her blood, but he also knew that he was partly to blame for not noticing what was going on until it was really too late to stop it.

He stroked a hand over Sam's hair, like he used to when they were younger, and smiled when Sam turned slightly into the hand, just like when they were kids.

"We're gonna talk as soon as you're awake, Sammy. And we're gonna get some stuff straightened out," he promised, before leaning back in his chair. They were going to get back on the same page and Heaven and Hell had better look out.

The End.

Prompt 2: Set in Season 5: Sam's guilt over freeing Lucifer and his terror of becoming the vessel is wearing him down. And on top of all that, Dean still doesn't trust him. Sam will do anything to get back his 'honor' and credibility, even if it means risking his own life.

Other notes: My only request is to keep it Gen please! Otherwise do what you will!


End file.
